Review of the Series: Major Findings and Trends

Sometimes a barely formed seed of an idea, spoken out loud almost in jest, takes root and grows … and grows … and grows.

I do not think that in the earliest cautious discussions that led to Edinburgh 2010 we had much vision beyond somehow capturing the stimulating discussions of the preceding years when a series of day conferences in Edinburgh revisited in turn each of the Edinburgh 1910 commissions.

But, as the saying goes, one thing leads to another. Or maybe we should say that it was God himself who watered that seed and before we knew it we were planning much, much more. First the study consultations in different parts of the world: not so many, really, and few that broke out of a particular tribe, but consultations and conferences all the same, and the beginnings of papers asking to be shared more widely.

Then the conference of 2010, far smaller than that of 1910 in the end, but more representative, too, of the contemporary world church: a little microcosm of what were only hopes and dreams in 1910. Here the findings of the study groups, and of others who had not yet been involved, were explored and developed further.

The question was, was it possible to capture all these conversations in a more permanent form? Were there elements that made these particular conversations sufficiently distinctive that they merited the investment of time and energy and sheer hard cash that would be needed to transform them into published print?

Were we visionaries or naïve fools? Maybe a touch of both. We believed that the distinctive would be in drawing together reflections and convictions and stories from right across the world church spectrum. We mostly, if we are honest, read primarily the products of our own church traditions, our own favourite publishers and authors. And few publishers are interested in books that cross all those boundaries. It is rather bad marketing, and publishers have to pay attention to making the sums add up. Perhaps we were mad to try to defy the accepted pattern.

But the Lord threw some pebbles into the pool of accepted wisdom, and the series we celebrate today is the result.

First, there were some very tenacious people, especially Knud Jørgensen and Kirsteen Kim and Kenneth Ross. Next there were some very generous organisations, especially Areopagos and World Council of Churches, but others, too. Next there were some people who were willing to join in, writing, editing, encouraging, so that messy papers could be coaxed into much more polished and inviting form. And then there were Wonsuk and Julie Ma and Regnum, willing and able to be the publisher. That all adds up to quite some total, humanly speaking and we believe with the wind of the Spirit of God moving things along.

Even so, I do not think any of us sitting round the table and making plans, before and after the Edinburgh meeting, could have envisaged quite how many volumes would come of it all. Perhaps it would all have been just too overwhelming had we known. Thirty-six books will have come to birth before it is all finished.

Has all this work been worthwhile? Let me tell you why I think it has.

First, probably uniquely, this series gathers together in one place a snapshot of understanding of mission today from right across the world church spectrum. I am not aware of anywhere else where that is so. In years to come, people will be able to read these books and peer into the minds and hearts of men and women across the church families and from around the world. Just as 1910 was a point in a developing history, not the setting in concrete for all of the future, so this 2010 series records current beliefs and describes current praxis. I wonder what our descendants in 2110, if the Lord has not returned, might make of us. At least they will know what we believed and why we did what we did and did not do what we did not do.

Second, many of the volumes contain voices from many different traditions, reflecting on the same topic. You do not have to agree with everything everybody writes – indeed, it is healthy for all of us to read and seek to learn from beyond our own traditions. Those voices are also wonderfully international, and illustrate powerfully how we are all shaped by context, our cultures and our history. That is a healthy lesson, too.

Third, there are sadly too few places that provide a setting where we can explore our differences and distinctives, and do it in a respectful manner. I think this series provides such a place. I am grateful for that.

Fourth, some volumes give an opportunity for disparate voices from within one church tradition to speak to one another. Not all Orthodox are the same, not all Pentecostals, not all within the Anglican Community, and so on.

Fifth, and perhaps more negatively, the series highlights the ongoing different convictions we hold about what mission is and is not. As an evangelical, I was sad – and yes, rather offended and very troubled – to be told very vehemently by another delegate to Edinburgh 2010, that mission today should never involve evangelism, that all faiths are the same, and witness need not involve Jesus Christ.

I think our statement coming out of that gathering reflected that you cannot have Christian faith without the Lord Jesus Christ at the heart of it all, and our books – even the more radical elements of them – affirm that, too. But there remain significant differences about what we mean by that. There are also differences about what we mean when we speak of the Holy Spirit in mission, or about the role of the Bible today in defining what mission is all about, the scope of mission, and quite a few other rather fundamental areas. I do not think either the event or the publications have produced consensus, and we delude ourselves if we think they have. I believe the conversation must go on, not stop here.

Academics and theoreticians love to talk among themselves, but are rarely at the sharp end of converting ideas into practice – of actually doing anything. The Cape Town Commitment – in comparison to this library of Regnum books, just one very slim booklet – may have more impact on the actual practice of mission and the way the church is called to live and be and witness in the world, because it moves beyond the academic and is chock-full of concrete application and illustration. Further, both the World Evangelical Alliance and the Lausanne Movement have structures which facilitate this. There is no over-arching structure that makes it easy to take forward the ideas of Edinburgh 2010 and the Regnum series, except these books themselves.

Do I think these books will be widely read? Frankly, I do not know. Will they move much beyond academic libraries? I do not know. Will people of different traditions read only the volumes that they think fit best with their own positions? I do not know. Will these volumes significantly shape and change mission in the future? I do not think so. Our differences are probably too wide to bridge easily.

But despite that, the series provides a unique platform from which to grow in mutual understanding, perhaps challenge some of our respective certainties, certainly encourage us all to look for what God may be doing beyond our own traditions. Those have to be good things.

And beyond that, as these books trickle out around the world, as those who have written in them have opportunity to speak about their experience of being involved, as all of us bear witness to Jesus Christ as Lord, and as the Holy Spirit inspires his people throughout the world church, may the Triune God be glorified and worshipped.